Head-2-Head Feature VIII: DC-9 Vs CRJ

By Ron Blehm (March 15, 2012)

In this challenge we are going to compare a couple of twin jets that live 40 years apart.

The Douglas DC-9 was developed in 1965 with seating for around 80 passengers. The Bombardier CRJ began development in 1995, with the CRJ-900 sub-version, seating around 80 passengers, in the mid 2000s; forty years since the DC-9 came to be. I should drop a note of apology to a "Travis" out there who wanted me to fly the DC-9 versus a 732.

It's odd how folks get certain impressions that stick with them for years. I actually liked the DC-9s; they were not the best flying experience but a good-looking, stubby little thing. I was never a fan of the MD-80/90 aircraft as they just seemed awkwardly long for my taste; and then the jack-screw incident of Alaska Flight 261 sorta sealed my distain of anything but the true, original DC-9. And as for the CRJs? I always kind of view them as Learjets on steroids!

But, with two engines, a T-tail and seating for around eighty this seemed like a fair comparison. According to the book the DC-9 comes in heavier at 49,900 pounds empty versus the CRJ at 47,250. You can blame all the carbon fiber for the lighter weight but the CRJ is also about two feet narrower: 8 ft 5 in versus 10 ft 3 in for the DC-9.

Today's two FS aircraft are the Project Open Sky CRJ-900 and Team SGA's DC-9 by Erick Cantu. The POSKY team have exactly matched the real aircraft data with empty weight at 47,250 and max weight at 84,500 for a difference of 37,250. The SGA team put their DC-9 a bit heavier than the book with their empty weight listed in the CFG as 56,855 pounds but they also bumped up the max weight so no tweaking required here either.

Here is today's challenge:

• I took the difference in the empty and max weights of each aircraft; 37,250 for the CRJ and 52,145 for the DC-9
• I divided that in half; 18,625 for the CRJ and 26,072 for the DC-9
• Rounding up I put 20,000 pounds payload in the CRJ and 29,000 pounds payload in the DC-9 (I wanted each aircraft to have the same relative effort)
• Then I topped off the gas tanks
• I set in a route from Kinshasa, Congo to Kigali, Rwanda
• We'll depart at 06:35 AM local, fly just under 900 miles at FL310 and 290 IAS

Both flights were ... "nominal" and I started descent over Lake Kivu and set-up for landing, over the city onto runway 10, in Kigali.

The DC-9 touched the runway at 09:46 local time having burned just over 12,000 pounds of gas.

The CRJ touched the runway at 09:48 local time having burned just under 11,000 pounds of gas.

I wonder if two minutes is worth the thirteen-hundred pounds of fuel? I guess that will be up to you but now we know that according to these two sim versions efficiency is pretty much an even draw.

Ron Blehm
pretendpilot@yahoo.com